Center on Education and Training for Employment

About CETE

CETE works to enhance the workforce development system and to help all individuals gain the skills they need for work that is valued.

The workforce development system includes four interdependent sectors:

• Lifelong education and training
• Public policy
• Employers
• The labor pool (age 15-lifelong)

Each sector is linked to the three others by a mutual flow of interactions back and forth-information, influence, questions, answers, decisions.

Lifelong Education and Training

The lifelong education and training sector includes the public and private entities that provide formal or informal opportunities for individuals of all ages to gain skills they need or want:

• Public and private educational institutions, from preschool through continuing education
• Employers ranging from private business to the military that provide their own in-house programs or apprenticeships
• Special programs like training for dislocated workers, welfare-to-work, adult literacy and basic education
• Service organizations, community-based organizations, and others like the YWCA or YMCA
• Businesses and consultants who provide training services for profit

Public Policy

The public policy sector includes legislative, executive, and judicial bodies at the federal, state, and local level that make basic decisions affecting the other three sectors:

• Laws
• Policy and regulations
• Rulings
• Funding

Employers

Employers include all the private and public organizations that pay individuals to perform work, from the smallest microenterprise to huge government agencies and transnational corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees.

The Labor Pool

The labor pool includes the entire population, with a particular focus on individuals who have jobs or are looking for work.

All four interdependent sectors need to align on a shared vision of workforce development so that all stakeholders do their part to create skilled individuals who can perform work that is valued.

History

For 40 years, this Center has been a leader in what is now known as workforce development. The Center's long history attests to its ability to anticipate changing conditions and to evolve as the nature of work has evolved, while sustaining its focus on improving the workforce development system. The staff of the Center on Education and Training for Employment (CETE) works to influence the dialogue among that system's four sectors—lifelong education and training, public policy, employers, and the labor pool—through an unparalleled array of expertise, experience, information, and technology, developed through 40 years of leadership and service.

Our commitment began in 1963 with the establishment of a national Center for Advanced Study and Research in Agricultural Education at the Ohio State University under the direction of Dr. Robert E. Taylor. Following the passage of the Vocational Education Act, the Center's research and development mission quickly broadened to include all of vocational education.

With the support of the U.S. Office of Education, the Center for Research and Leadership in Vocational and Technical Education was established in 1965. Known as the Center for Vocational and Technical Education (CVTE), the institution focused on providing viable solutions to significant workforce development problems through research, development, training, and dissemination.

In December 1977, the U.S. Office of Education designated the Center as the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, a designation it retained for 10 years. When the designation moved on, the Center became part of Ohio State's College of Education, with a new name—the Center on Education and Training for Employment—and a continuing dedication to enhancing the workforce development system.